


The World Is Falling

by Laiska



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Experimental, Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV Second Person, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, but really it's angst again I'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 12:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10189583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laiska/pseuds/Laiska
Summary: He was always your lifeline.But you can't save anyone when you're already drowning.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Two parts from two perspectives, one side at a time or in tandem.

You're falling more in love with him, because absence is a funny thing.  
  


_You're falling out of love with him, because when you look at him you see everything you've come to hate._  
  


Every day that passes without him near you, the parts of your memory that haven't been as galvanized by adoration as the others begin to chip away, to be refilled by artificed ideals of the man who has haunted you near half your life. Mountains and oceans apart, you can still taste his smoke and his sweat, the odor of burnt coffee and incensed soaps lingering on shared bedsheets—cold now but for your own heat.  
  


_Despite the face he puts to the world—a picture perfect form, a starry gaze, steadfastness personified—in your heart you know the small, broken thing that cowers behind it, that frightened boy beneath the man. It's an awful fine metaphor for the truthless suits that set decrees upon you both, the ones who grant quarter to the unsavory lusts that lurk under_ your _skin, all the while spitting their righteous bile on the surface._  
  


Thoughts of him absorb you when he is away, when you can spare them between the tasks that are placed on _your_ shoulders. You are the face and body, and he is the shadow lurking behind, the hands that wreak the dark errands that must be done but which no one dares to speak of. You are the one that they see, the focus that they praise and glorify, the centerpiece of murals and the jewel of propagandic film.  
  


_When you see him, you think of the all sweet lies you've told, time and again. You've tried your damnedest to pretend you're unbothered by the lot you've been given, for the sake of you both, but it can never be enough. You fight and scrape for the ever-maddening desire of him, but even the strength of your fingers is insufficient to wrench this feeling from your heart, and each time you think you've succeeded in abandoning it, all he has to do is say your name, and the plague comes thundering back._  
  


And you are the one they strike when they are unhappy. Your skin bears the brunt of the flames you feel lapping ever more around you, a merciless inferno that even your powerful words cannot extinguish. You receive the lashings and beratement, and though your gaze remains steadfast, your heart is faltering. You're beginning to wonder if you were in fact the wrong one after all.  
  


_So you leave him. You take every opportunity to flee as far as you possibly can, wherever the barrel of a gun may blast you. Mountains, oceans apart—but he's still there. He's on sign posts and televisions. His name is in your ears, on your comrades' lips. You banish his presence but he's omnipresent, like an echo that won't stop resounding. You can hide all you want—but the dark side of the moon wouldn't be far enough to escape him. Those barbs he has hooked in you are stuck until Armageddon._  
  


But he tells you, on your sleepless nights, his firmness your bastion against the cold, that they made the right choice. That he loves you, and he believes in you, and he assures time and again that these matters are no matter at all, that you are equal whatever comes. And however you may feel yourself crumbling, he will be there to shore up the pieces and make you whole again. His hands and his roughness upon you seal the promise whispered by the deep rumbling in his chest, and in those times, that vow is the only truth you require.  
  


_And it hurts you, until you want to see him hurting too, and the loathing turns itself back upon you for daring to field that desire. You're mired in him, neck deep and gasping for breath. You linger in the dark places behind those struck by his beam. But you learn relish the power in being unseen. You don't bask in sweet adulation, but you're free to handle your work in any way you please. You're a ghost, stronger than even him, supernatural, and he hates it. And you know it. Your bodies are equal, yet you aren't tethered to their whims the way he is, and that freedom alone sets you on top._  
  


Still, he hasn't spoken that vow in a long while now—but the lack of those words only makes them dearer to you, so dear that if you could, you would tattoo the echoes on your ears the way the feeling of his breath lingers on your lips. The world is falling—the world is falling they might say, but when the earth beneath your feet finally dissolves into abyss he will be your lifeline, bound to you by pain and history, turmoil and glory.  
  


_But that's the only freedom you have, isn't it? No matter what passes, you're still bound to him, by the feebleness of a human heart, and a will beyond your own that leaves you terrified and shaking. You're apart now and you say you won't ever go back. But you have to. And you know that the second you do, his voice will be your unmaking. The very air that surrounds him is as smothering as the sea._  
  


Though you are apart now, he remains at your side, inside you, and all around. He is the awaited feeling of home after a journey, the warmth of sunlight bursting through the cracks in his own gloom, and he is everything you've needed.  
  


_You are changing now, and he is not. His love is a snarl of vines that binds you to the cold ground. The essence of him is blinding light, and searing pain._  
  


Your love is as strong, and as vulnerable, as your own bodies, and the bond you share will never be broken.  
  


_There is nothing more you could wish for than the bond between you to be broken._  
  


Nothing else in this world could be so sure.  



End file.
